A private moment to discuss The Doctor
by rottenwriter83
Summary: This is a conversation I imagine took place between Martha and Jack. Jack enlightens Martha about The Doctor and how he feels about Rose. This is my first attempt at fanfiction so let me know what you think. ** disclaimer : I own nothing related to Doctor Who.


**A Private Moment to Discuss The Doctor**

**Some time between landing at the end of time with an unexpected hitchhiker and discovering the identity of The Master. Some time in the midst of the turmoil and the calculations and watching The Doctor showing off his genius mind - at some point Jack and Martha found a moment of their own.**

**Something was bothering Martha. Jack could tell by the sidelong glances and the occasional utterances that were quickly concealed by a clearing of her throat that there was something she wanted to say. **

**"Might as well just come out and say it." Jack called out from beneath a massive coil he was tinkering with per The Doctor's instructions. Martha groaned and rolled her eyes, annoyed at her own transparency. Flopping down on the nearby futon-like couch. For a moment she scoffed, "Billions of years into the future and I find that the Futon survived."**

**"What?" Jack's head poked out from beneath where he was tinkering. Martha gestured to the faded piece of furniture, then flipped her wrist down "forget it". **

**"Tell me about Rose." Martha said abruptly. **

**"Rose..." Jack emerged from his tight spot and wiped his greasy hands on a rag. He didn't sound at all surprised by her request. Jack's mind brought up the picture of the busty blonde that was never too far from his thoughts. A sad smile spread across his face.**

**Martha saw the look, she crossed her arms in a pout. "The Wonderful Incredible Rose Tyler.." she mumbled sarcastically.**

**"Tsk tsk," Jack teased, as he took a seat near her, "jealousy is never attractive." **

**"Hmmph." was Martha's only reply.**

**"Rose was special, that's for sure." Jack wanted to leave it at that. He wanted to get back to work on the massive coil which he had no idea what it did. But he didn't want to think about Rose. Rose who was trapped forever on a parallel world.**

**"Come on Jack."**

**Jack sighed and passed a wrench-like thing from one hand to another. "She's special like you're special." Jack said dismissively. Martha rolled her eyes. "Come ON Jack!" she said again.**

**"No I mean it! How many people in time and space get to travel on the TARDIS with The Doctor?! You, me, Rose, a handful of others over the course of hundreds of years! I mean, what do you want?" **

**Martha was exasperated, "You know what I mean Jack, there was something about Rose - something he doesn't want to talk about, something obviously YOU don't want to talk about! What is it?!"**

**Jack raked his hand through his hair, he knew what she wanted him to say, what she needed admitted out loud. But he also knew it wasn't really going to make her feel any better. At least not right away. He shrugged and submitted. It might help her later on, when she had the chance to think about it, a long while, then maybe she'd feel better. It took a long time, but hadn't it helped him? **

**"Ok," He began, "Rose is special because," there was a deep sigh, "because he loves her." **

**Silence hung between them like a heavy velvet curtain. **

**A tear clung to one of Martha's dark eyelashes, she swiped at it defiantly. "He feels about her like I feel about him." It was said quietly, but defiantly, as Martha guarded her heart.**

**"Not quite." Jack responded gently.**

**Martha's eyes flew open and locked him with a watery glare, daring Jack to belittle the power of her emotions. **

**"I don't mean you don't love him. We all love him, don't you see?" **

**Martha's gaze turned questioning, something occurring to her for the first time. "You love him?" **

**Jack used a clean edge of his rag to brush some grease from his cheek, at least he hoped she thought it was grease. "Like I said, we all love him. He's the dream. The white knight on the gleaming charger. The Savior, the adventurer. He has the life we all dream of! We are his followers, his companions. He bestows upon us the gift of abandoning the mundane, to see the universe as few other humans get to see it. He infects us with his spirit and cultivates our desire to help good to triumph over the dark forces that creep across this universe. And he loves us for it. He loves us for keeping his lonely soul company on his endless quest. We all have a small home in his two hearts." **

**"But Rose is special." Martha offered.**

**Jack nodded. "He told you what happened to his people? You know about the Time War?"**

**Martha nodded.**

**"Then you have to understand that Rose found him when he had nothing. He had lost absolutely everything. He needed somebody in so many ways, and he found Rose."**

**"So she was just in the right place in the right time?" Martha was unwilling to accept that answer.**

**"Maybe." Jack said,"But I don't think so. There's an ancient human belief that every soul has a single person meant just for them, a soulmate they called it. Are you familiar with this belief?"**

**Martha nodded again, she was very familiar with it. Her sister was constantly claiming to have "found her soulmate". Martha was a little too pragmatic to buy into such a romantic notion. But it was a nice fantasy.**

**"I always liked that notion," Jack mused." **

**"You?" Martha was surprised having already witnessed his chronic flirtatious nature.**

**Jack laughed, "Me, yes. I didn't say it was for ME! I just always thought it was a nice thought, to belong to one person." Jack sighed again,"I don't know how it works for Time Lords. Maybe they get a soulmate for each regeneration. All i know is that Rose and Him were meant to be. He didn't just need somebody, he needed her. He may live outside of time and space. He may not live by the laws of clocks or the laws of men. But he is ruled by fate. Do you believe in fate?"**

**Martha shrugged, she didn't know what she believed in anymore. She traveled with an alien who could change his face and travel in time and space and had two hearts beating in his chest. She'd met Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth and a galactic police force made up of black rhinos in space suits. She'd seen one man turn back his own clock and return to his youth - and then become a gigantic cockroach. Now she was sitting in a rocketship talking about love and fate with a man who, by her calculations was about two hundred years both older and younger than herself. "I don't know what I believe." She admitted to Jack. **

**"I didn't believe in fate til I met The Doctor, and Rose. We met in London, did you know?"**

**Martha shook her head.**

**"London, World War II - during the blitz." he laughed, "I saved Rose from falling over 100 feet, she'd been dangling from a barrage balloon. I was a Time Agent then. I knew nothing of Time Lords or Daleks or the TARDIS. The Doctor didn't mean to land there, in that time. But there we all were. And it was meant to be. We were meant to meet. And I believe that Rose was meant for The Doctor."**

**The curtain of silence hung again between them, not quite as heavily this time. **

**"I don't know how he left her wherever he left her. But I do know he didn't leave her there on purpose." **


End file.
